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November 25, 2016

We have hosted the family Thanksgiving meal for 30 years. When we started it seemed fine to use a table with home-made particle board extensions and cardboard tubes to help hold it up. A tablecloth made from a length of wide knit fabric worked fine. At some point we probably should have upgraded the table and the table settings, but didn't. As the group grew we just added on card tables and got a longer piece of fabric. This year the 30 year old oven had to be operated with pliers...well, we found channel-locks first. The group has a good time, but Martha Stewart we are not.

November 07, 2013

In fact, it was downright frosty, no pun intended. The plan was for a sunset wedding ceremony outdoors...but our small sized group did not qualify for an on-season date (which required at least 100 guests). So we took the first off-season date and hoped for the best. It was cold, but we didn't lose anyone to hypothermia. The mother of the bride focused on trivia like making this stuff:

The bride took care of the rest of the logistics with very little help from anyone. It was so much fun! It looked as though a good time was had by all. Really a heart warming ceremony... even if our noses got a bit cold.

June 16, 2013

The new hip is great and I am really enjoying moving around with so much less pain. While my dancing style is closer to the gal in the background here... the possibility of moving like Miss Plaid is on the horizon.

There is a very good chance I owned this pattern back in the day. I know I made a couple of tops in this style with a keyhole neckline. Hopefully that pattern is not still part of the sewing dungeon's inventory.

May 30, 2013

The good news is that I sold "Put a Bird on It" from the 1109 Gallery's latest show:

The bad news is that the gallery is now closed and out of business. The Art Guild just couldn't keep up with the rent. I blame Kansas Governor Brownback for this set-back! He cancelled the Kansas Art Commission and all state support of the arts. Small grants from the Art Commission helped finance things like the rent on a community gallery that was built by volunteer hands. Mr. Brownback wants so badly to be president, and he is sacrificing most of what was good about Kansas in order to create a conservative Republican utopia where taxes are low, children are poorly educated and community infrastructures are crumbling. He hopes when his mission is accomplished here that he can use it as a resume for national leadership. I don't know why people who hate government go into it as a career. Here is an editorial obituary for Kansas from my hometown newspaper that sums it all up very well:

Kansas 1861-2013

By Jason Probst

TOPEKA - The Great State of Kansas passed away on March 31, 2013, after a long and difficult battle with extremism that became markedly more aggressive in 2010. The struggle left the state so weakened it could no longer fight against the relentless attacks by the fatal disease.

Kansas was born on Jan. 29, 1861.

The state is preceded in death by fair taxation, good highways, strong education, family farms, a good public parks and wildlife system, open government, neighborliness and belief in helping each other out, freely elected public servants, and political moderation.Kansas is survived by widespread poverty, low-wage jobs, high property taxes, pollution, poorly educated children, outmigration and rural depopulation, foreign land and farm ownership, lobbyist-funded legislators, chronic mistreatment of the disabled, a maniacal hatred of government and children who dream of living anywhere else.

During its early years, Kansas played a pivotal role in the Civil War by staking out a strong progressive stand against slavery. Despite repeated raids from border ruffians, Kansas held firm to the belief of free men and free soil.

Throughout its life, Kansas often aligned with leading progressive causes. William Allen White, one of the state's most notable residents, once wrote that "if it's going to happen, it happens first in Kansas." That once was true. Kansas was the first state to ban the Ku Klux Klan, and the first to elect women to public office - one as mayor and another as sheriff.

It was the birthplace of the populist movement, rising as farmers and ordinary people grew weary of the Gilded Age politics of the late 1800s and early 1900s that favored investment interests over those of landowners and laborers.

Kansas was a leader in public education, with one-room school houses dotting the plains. A full 12 years before it was a national concern, Kansas established child labor laws that restricted employment of children in potentially dangerous industries.

In the 1950s, Kansas laid the path to civil rights for African-Americans with the historic Brown vs. Board of Education case - the first in the country to rule against a policy of segregation in public schools.

Despite its compassionate nature, Kansas proved to be a state teeming with inventiveness, ingenuity, determination and a savvy sense of business.

Cessna, Beech and Stearman helped establish Kansas as a center of the aviation industry. Coleman launched an international company from Wichita that became a household name. Pizza Hut and White Castle - two iconic eateries - both got their start in Kansas, and the man who helped establish the American automobile industry called Kansas home.

Kansas' history is filled with vibrant, dynamic people. Settlers who claimed land once described as a desert and turned it into the world's garden; immigrants who came by the train-load and brought with them the hard winter wheat that germinated the state's prosperity. Throughout the years, Kansans endured drought, grasshopper plagues, depression and fierce weather, yet its people worked to hold tight to their land and the belief that there was goodness in Kansas. In spite of those hardships, the state produced world-renowned artists, writers, inventors, business leaders, astronauts, even a president.

Kansas was a strong-willed state whose hands were calloused enough to turn up the hardest sod and tender enough to calm a crying child.

Despite its strength and vitality, Kansas couldn't survive the influences of outside political machines that sought to use this fertile ground and its people as a test plot for an ambitious political experiment.

The elections of 2010 and 2012 brought the poisoned pill that would bring about Kansas' untimely end. The first election seated a governor who tossed aside Kansas' storied history and replaced it with a vision of his own design. In 2012, record setting campaign contributions from out-of-state donors financed the defeat of those moderate Republicans who had spent the last of their political careers keeping Kansas alive.

One by one, the things Kansas had spent a lifetime building were dismantled, until the state was rendered as empty and uninviting as it had been in those early days when the first settlers eyed its endless expanse.

Along the way, the state's defenders - the farmer, the laborer, the property owner and the shop keeper - stood mute and passive, hoping for a day when the state would spark back to life, as it had always done before.

They remained silent too long.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be sent to the Kansas Chamber of Commerce, the Kansas Policy Institute, or Americans for Prosperity all in care of Gov. Sam Brownback, Office of the Governor, Capital 300 SW 10th Ave. Ste 241S, Topeka, KS 66612-1590.

April 22, 2013

Have I mentioned my family history of debilitating arthritis? No? Good. It is a boring tale that includes a lot of whining about pain. I'm breaking from family tradition (not the whining part) and starting out on what will probably be a series of joint replacements. Everyone else has just toughed it out.

November 09, 2012

I like buying handbags and lately even shoes. Probably because I don't have to be in a plus-size department to get something that fits.. But anyway, expensive handbags are a temptation that I have resisted for the most part. I recently bought a bag at the Plaza Art Fair that cost a bit over $100, and that seemed quite extravagant to me. Prices on designer bags are often shocking and I guess that is most of the appeal. Carrying a bag that cost thousands of dollars shows that you are wealthy and successful (or that your consumer debt is out of control). Well, a few weeks ago I ended up in the local hospital ER and then spent the next 36 hours in the hospital. I am now the proud owner of this bag that I now use to carry my towel and suit to water exercise class. It cost just over $16,000.00

June 18, 2012

I have been saving this picture of a wall that plays music until I could find video of it in action:

If you click here they say they have that video, but honestly I could not hear anything. There are some good additional photos of the wall, though.

Also, I was looking for an app that I heard of somewhere that would let me edit the "Keep Calm and Carry On" poster that is everwhere. I didn't find the app, but I found what I had hoped to create already available...so enjoy:

March 31, 2012

We have been consumed with college basketball here, deep into March Madness. It has been so much fun watching a team exceed expectations-which is rare here. We are so spoiled with a great coach and very good teams year after year. This year my long suffering husband and I got off the sofa and went to the first two rounds of games, first to Omaha and then to St. Louis. It was a lot of fun! Here is a self portrait of b-ball fans in Omaha:

Now, a shout out to Portlandia fans... We had breakfast in an Omaha coffee shop/bakery one morning, and lets face it, I always clean my plate and have never really understood what folks are talking about when they say something is "too rich". BUT the lovely cinnamon rolls we bought for breakfast had double frosting and no noticeable cinnamon. I couldn't finish my near tasteless blob. Possibly a first.

I decided we has stumbled upon a "Cup of Joe, Side of Dough" special.

To complete the Portlandia theme, the coffee shop had a nice exhibit of bad art:

March 01, 2012

September 21, 2011

Just a quick note to anyone that might be wondering if I have abandoned this blog... No, I have just been busy refurbishing our worn out rental so our #1 daughter could move into it. Funny how if you tell someone you are a painter, they don't immediately think of house paint!

But here is some news:

Saturday, Sept. 24 at 3:00 pm in the Archives and Library Classroom of the Kansas Historical Museum in Topeka, I will join Amy Barickman, author of "Vintage Notions" to discuss our books. I will be showing my sampler quilt that celebrates 150 years on the prairie from my book "Happy Birthday Kansas!". After the talk I will be in the Barnes and Noble tent to sign books and answer questions.

May 31, 2011

One Amazon parrot (Gladys) loves me. The second Amazon parrot (Major) loves Gladys, hates me. Gladys hates Major, and will not allow him within 24 inches of her. This is measured rather exactly. After each rebuff, Major attacks me. Gladys hates my husband. Major might be friendly to husband, but husband only tolerates birds and does not want any bird friends. The third Amazon parrot (Nana) is not fond of any of us.

Every day I let Gladys and Major stroll around the house for exercise (Nana prefers to stay near his/her cage). Just like a couple of human children, if these two are out and not fighting, they are probably doing something they shouldn't. A couple of days ago they were out and very quiet. Too quiet. I should have investigated faster. Major stood guard while Gladys destroyed a pair of long-suffering husband's shoes. Well the shoes are still usable, but husband refuses to wear shoes with pinked edges so carefully created by a bad bird's beak.

January 23, 2011

I've got a million excuses for not posting.... I did the program at the two meetings of my quilt guild. I made a quilt for a local halfway house. (But didn't get around to photographing it.) My book came out and I've been doing some feeble attempts to promote it.

Oh, and I adopted another parrot. I now have two pairs of parrots, but they are not paired. The sunroom (aka birdroom) has all four cages occupied by a single noisy bird.

This is Nana, a 30+ year old Blue-fronted Amazon parrot. Probably a male, but he has a high pitched voice and Nana seems like a girl's name. So I am having a hard time not referring to him as her. Like my other Amazons, Nana outlived his owner and was passed around as an unwanted inheritance a bit before ending up in a parrot rescue. I need to put up a no-vacancy sign on my home for unwanted geriatric Amazons....don't want to end up on an episode of "Animal Hoarders".

October 18, 2010

I just emptied out my camera and found that I had taken a couple of pictures of the K.C. Plaza Art Fair that I was going to talk about. I don't remember what I was going to say other than I liked this year's banner (skyline of the plaza with a giant bird) and that the weather was beautiful and we had a great time.

I stuck to my pledge to spend as much on art as on food and got a couple of things. A promise to spend twice as much is not hard to fulfill. This may be only resolution I have ever kept.

Here is another picture of the fair and one of the many Kansas City fountains.